


ouroboros

by nightofdean



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Sort Of, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 14:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightofdean/pseuds/nightofdean
Summary: Dante Ramon died in a car accident. Dante Ramon was also saved by his brother, Cisco Ramon from his Earth 2 counterpart. He also died in an accident before any of that happened. Both are true. Both are happening - happened.





	ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> musical terms:  
> da capo - to go to the beginning  
> legato - to flow from one note to the next  
> staccato - perform each note sharply or separated from others  
> crescendo adagio - get louder slowly
> 
> i listened to 'the lark' played by olga scheps and 'moonlight sonata' for this mainly bc their my main hc for what dante plays at Carnegie hall

He wakes in the dark. Cold and lost.

It takes him no time at all to respond to the name Zoom gives him. Hound, his faithful dog. Zoom says it with a knowing sneer in his voice, a tinge of yellow irony at the tip of his sharp teeth.

Except he knows better, always knew better. The name vibrates horribly out of tune in the air and stings whenever Zoom says it, and not just because he spits it like a curse.

He knows because it’s not his name. It’s an epithet. A tag to label him.

-

His name is plastered all over and a smile breaks out on his face. Bright and innocent. He’s going to play at Carnegie Hall, the whole world’s going to hear him.

The whole world is going to know about Dante Ramon the child prodigy.

-

The sky is clear when he can’t see his future anymore.

It’s also the same day Vibe dies. A charred hole in his chest.

He feels nothing. He sees nothing.

Zoom orders him to retrieve something. He doesn’t hear a word.

He has no future, no name, he is nobody.

A song with no one to hear it.

-

Dante screams when his hand is frozen. First degree frostbite. His mind whirls with panic and fear. As the villain threatens his brother’s life before him, he can feel his hand numbing.

He succumbs to the pain and he hates it. The staccato beat of his fear tapping out it’s cowardly rhythm against his chest. Cisco offers to help him to the hospital, but he only sees the bruise on his face and his own non-injured hand pushing him away.

He will let his name die for this. Swallow the bile in his stomach and quiet the madness in his heart.

Accept what he knew already. The child prodigy that performed in Carnegie Hall all those years ago perished the moment the curtains closed.

-

Apparently, shadows can have shadows. Or is this shadow like him too. A nobody with no name and no future.

There is only one way to find out. He reaches out touching the life lines of the shadow person, softly touching each colorful line. He sees the intricate web, some leading the shadow here, others far away, most lead here and go on stretching far away. Most stop at this moment.

They are the same.

He swings at the shadow’s lines and they respond in tune like a violin’s strings. A sound fills the air, grating at his gut. The harmony is wrong, out of tune, he knows how to fix it.

Fix the broken tune, bring them out of the shadows. He closes his eyes, and raises his instrument, he can see the strings before him. Feel them, underneath his fingers, pulling, singing a new song.

Their song.

Zoom’s claws tear open his chest and he doesn’t scream. He looks outside at the night, eyes forever seeing, looking at the same image.

Dante Ramon watching in horror as he perishes.  

-

Dante crosses the street sober and safe. His life strings stretching on and on and on. Into another dimension and back in a circle.

-

He wakes in the dark, cold and lost. His name is Dante Ramon, soon he’ll forget it.

Zoom gives him a name that isn’t his. He accepts it quicker than he thought he would.

The sound of it stings his soul, this is how he knows.

The life strings, singing their song is also how he knows. He knows the name of it.

He tells himself not yet. In fear of disrupting what has already passed.

-

Carnegie Hall hears Dante Ramon’s name, but they don’t hear his song.

-

He helps Zoom travel to the other Earth until the time is right. Opening portals into the dimensional force, a thing even he barely comprehends. Each time hearing a keening whine emit from the portal he’s sure Zoom can’t hear.

Once the keening becomes a wail so loud he finds blood in his ear later. Zoom can’t hear it. He wonders what else Zoom can’t see or hear in the portals.

He helps until he opens a portal and hears a familiar harmony. A slow legato, luxurious and beautiful, and the crescendo adagio. It was exactly as he thought it would be, a prefect da capo.

-

His hand is frost bitten and the pain is numbing. Dante’s heart beats a rapid staccato, but he can’t hear it. Only a sharp ringing as he pushes his way outside, anything to get away.

From the deafening cheers of the crowd. The clapping of the crowd, their too wide white smiles, the feel of his rented tuxedo. His shaking sweaty hands as he bowed as he was told and felt not for the first time that he was very far away.

Dante Ramon was still on that stage, a little boy playing a song that would never end.

-

He can hear the song, but it is trapped inside of Dante Ramon. Inside of a soulless man petrified of his own soul come to save him.

He reaches out and releases the song and restrings the destiny of Dante Ramon. Only so that the universe could hear his name again. Speak it and know it.

The world will know Dante Ramon. And then they won’t.

-

There is no one to save Dante Ramon. His death is instant.

-

He wakes to cold darkness. He is alone. His name is Dante.

He knows this will never end.

 

 

 

 


End file.
